I’m not sure how that is to be answered. How can All people bind their properties to the obligation to observe current and future laws ?. What’s t that supposed to mean ?
Also, why is that alleged land ownership defines how a political system works ? Why buying a plot of land would bind me to a set of arbitrary rules ? That sounds just like an attempt to re-create statism on a supposedly ‘voluntary’ basis.
A hundred neighboring people in a given area could set up such a system in order to form a state. For instance, they would agree to follow whatever decision is taken by the implied government. Binding their properties means they give up the right to sell those properties without those attached obligations.
From your post I understand you mean the contract must clearly define these things, like what constitutes the government. This is true, but we could imagine a democratic state forming from a small community this way, if its members had agreed to a precise set of terms (e.g. the chief is elected through equal voting, and he can decree whatever he wishes without breaching this contract).
Yeah, this situation is not likely to appear in real life, as most (if not all) states have emerged through coercion and war, but it raises a theoretical question: is a legitimate state possible?
Another idea on this (I picked it up while writing this reply)… Agreeing to such a contract would essentially be equivalent to selling/donating your land to a common pool or individual. So even if in the end it looks like property and sounds like property, it isn’t property if the contract is to be enforceable. One remains only with the right to buy/sell a handful of related rights: posession, usage rights etc.. It’s more like renting.
Oh, don’t get me wrong here.
Land is the most important statist concept which defines jurisdiction.
Well in this case to break the law (or better a rule) would mean you are breaking the original contract to which you agreed. So it is not necessarily “immoral”, but you can be penalised for the breach of contract. And I wouldn`t say the land has been “tainted”. You can think of it as an easement (a great word I learned recently).
The problem here is agreeing to observe any future law. By doing so you basicaly agree to give the other party the power to unilateraly change the conditions of the contract as it pleases. I don`t know if that sort of thing can be a valid contract.
It is perfectly OK if you are allowed veto over introduction of any new laws however. Your example is not very different from how a gated community or apartmant block works anyway.
But anyway, this is not how the state emerged. Here the validity of rules would stemm from these billateral private contracts. The state on the other hand unilateraly claims some sort of collective public soverignity over all private land on the account of being a political embodiment of the people or something.
I couldn`t agree with this. I think our mind has no bearing on what is. We can not will slavery be moral. No matter how strong consensus we form about it.
LOL. This made me chuckle.
No we can not. We can not walk into a hospital to help ourselves with as much morphine as we wish, we can only walk into a hospital to help ourselves with as much morphine as the state stole from us in taxes. Of course there is an additional complication. We can not help ourselves with too much morphine at once, because then there will be people who will suffer because of us, having not gotten their pain killers.
The problem isn`t in the act. The problem is in the collateral damage. You can take back what a thief stole from you, but it does not give you a license to hurt innocent third parties in the process. Ie, if the state fell apart it would be perfectly alright if I helped myself to some of the spoils. But it would not be alright if I helped myself to some “state owned” long distance coopper electric wiring, because that would mean a couple of towns would be left without electricity.
The same about the roads. We can not do anything we please on the road, such as drive recklessly because that would endanger innocent third parties (in fact not so much third parties as our fellow co-owners). However the state has absolutely no legitimacy to hound us with their idiotic rules for snowcovered license plates on our own joint property!
I believe that the state is as inevitable to humankind as much as the Silverback is inevitable in a troop of Gorrillas.
The Question only remains - how much State!!
You people here are deluded to think that latge parts of society would not turn feral without State intervention.
All Anarco/Capitalist rightousness would turn to dust when faced with a hungry son and a neighbours full pantry
Stop deluding yourselves and ACCEPT A STATE
Right because the neighbors full pantry is the only way to feed a hungry son, not buying food, working for food, picking or hunting for food. And the neighbor, because he hates my son, won’t share what is in his pantry, and insists upon escalating the situation to violence.
You make some great points. There are simply too many variables the state can solve, by confiscating the food from my neighbours pantry with armed jack-booted thugs, and then feeding my son, as opposed to my stealing it directly, or finding some other means to feed him.
I don’t need to accept the state, I can forage and hunt.
I don’t need to accept the state, I know how to shoot a gun.
I don’t need to accept the state, I have no problems killing those who would do illegitimate violence against me.
I think Giles initial false premise goes way back. He has some crazy idea that you can just lynch someone stepping on your property (as opposed to the more reasonable view that you must first fire a warnning shot, then shoot them in the leg and only then if they stil dont leave can you lynch them). This is why he must pretend the state is somehow the legitimate owner of “public property”. Because if instead of the state you and I own the streets, then he isn`t safe to walk them, because we are in our rights to lynch him (without firing a warnning shot first).
Thats the whole point of his “you can`t behave like you own the roads”. No, if behaving like you own the roads entails shooting people, then you can not, but you can break pointless arbitrary state rules all day long.
Right because the neighbors …No because the neighbors ATM Machines stopped working the same time as mine did, 7 weeks ago and I’m 6 Foot 5 & built like a brick shithouse & I’m HUNGRY
Point Made
There are indeed a lot of variables, the current state is not completely useless then because it does excert some sense of normallcy
Which would be more than can be said for an Anarchist society, don’t bother trying to draw me in with the NAP, it’s unworkable as stated in my point.
To some people paying for thngs is not unlike being gang raped by a bunch of Nazi’s, unfortunately mob rule has dictated that you should pay your taxes - so get on with it.
DO NOT ELIMINATE THE STATE ENTIRELY
BE DEMOCRATIC[A]
SIRMONTY WRITES I have no problems killing those who would do illegitimate violence against me.
And who decides whats illegitimate you fool, a commercial enterprise
You people are bonkers
Anyone who tries to initiate aggression against me, that’s who.
You’re missing the point, not making the point. The state is either going to let your son starve by defending your neighbors larder, or they are going to go in and take his food against his will, and feed your son.
Based upon your love for emotional appeals, I would suspect someone would orate about sharing and compassionate government, so the state would go steal from your neighbor for you, but it will be all legal because people voted to steal.
If the mob rule dictated Jews should be murdered, would that make it legitimate?
Ban please? [;)]
No, politicians. They are way more honest and trustworthy than commercial enterprise. lol
I think attention should be paid to this poster rather than dismissing them as simply a troll. I say this because I am often confronted by people who have an immediate distrust of those of us who wish to abolish a state and will speak loudly against us without understanding our position.
These are the people we are compelled to teach - and in the very basics of the theory. These are not the drifters that would accept no state so long as services are requisite - these are the ones who will argue against us in our absence, and appeal to the emotional and illogically “practical” sides of people. We need folks like this to, at the very least, not oppose our ideas, because they are the vocal part of the majority.
It is not enough for us to point to articles and writings as we so often do, but rather, as a few in this thread have already done, address the issues for which they confront us on in simple terms. Our reasoning is sound, and because we make the effort to understand these issues it would be disingenuous of us to not articulate them well.
Thanks for joining 6800x and hopefully all of the issues you raise you will find the answers to (check out the search function first [;)])
Apologies for the Trollish Behaviour - I would’nt like to be banned
Please answer the simple question quoted rather than say Go study Neiscer or read our prevuious responses
No one wants to see you banned either. But please conduct the discussion in good faith. AndrewK makes a good point, that we are here to discuss, teach and learn, but our time is finite, and it becomes hard to justify chasing a tail in debate.
No, the question is, why a monopoly state? Why can’t people choose different states the way they choose different religions?
Because that’s the way it’s defined.
I somewhat agree with the sentiments expressed here, for me the problem arises when we consider the amount the state spends on roads. The state spends considerably more on even just a few roads than the average person is taxed.
Thankyou
Do you mean go tribal again ? how well do these tribal states/religions interface with each other and other countrys ?
If it is capitalist in nature then IMHO there would be a greater chance of injustice!!
If it is not capitalist then it must be democratic or a close flavour thereof
OR?